The Orchestral Music of Jack Gallagher, Beautifully Performed by the LSO

Present-day American composer Jack Gallagher may not be a name that is heard often in the music chatter that flows through the internet and, alas to a lesser extent these days, the printed medium. But it probably should be. The composer was kind enough to send me a copy of this Orchestral Music (Naxos 8.559652) and I am very glad he did.

The first thing that hit me was the lush beauty of the London Symphony Orchestra's performance of his works under the direction of JoAnn Falletta, and the brilliant soundstaging achieved at London's famed Abbey Road studios.

Then there is Jack Gallagher's music. It is orchestrated excellently. It is quite lyrical. I'd say it reminds me a little of the symphonic Howard Hanson, in the sense that there is a melding of craft and passion that has an American robustness to it, and it has a traditional neo-romantic quality about it. But that would miss out on what strikes me a little more about these works--that is the very fertile melodic inventiveness that pervades every movement. So perhaps think of Roy Harris and his long melodic phrasing. Only, of course, this is Jack Gallagher's music, which is something unto itself.

The CD covers works spanning a wide period, from the short 1977 "Berceuse," the lively "Diversions Overture" from 1986, and on to the two major works represented, his "Sinfonietta" written in 1990/2007, and the "Symphony in One Movement: Threnody" from 1991. The latter two works are the most substantial and rewarding for this listener.

All I can tell you is that I've gotten a great deal of pleasure listening to the music on this Naxos disk. From the evidence of this recording Dr. Gallagher is not one of the explorers of the frontiers of musical practice. He stays in a place where he is obviously quite comfortable and then creates music that has richly lyrical overtones.

If you like the idea of that I have little doubt that the music will give you the same pleasure it is giving me!

Michael Daugherty's Latest Collection of Brightly Colored Orchestral Music

American orchestral composer Michael Daugherty writes melodic motifs that are neither cliche nor are they exceptionally original. What they are is distinctly American. They often draw on the music in the air out there, in the vernacular, in rock, pop, mainstream jazz, musicals, in the lounges and on people's i-pods, the sort of thing the mailman might whistle while making his rounds or the guy who is stacking cans at the local Shoprite. It is what Mr, Daugherty does with these motifs that constitutes his great appeal, his natural feel for orchestration and the flow of his musical syntax. As you listen to his new CD Route 66-Ghost Ranch-Time Machine (Naxos 8.559613) his brilliance at musical bricolage is apparent and palpable.

The new one consists of four evocative tone poems for orchestra, all written between 1998-2006, some in several movements, each lasting a relatively short time (between seven and 20 minutes), each tied into an implied descriptive verbal-visual program. So we have "Route 66," "Ghost Ranch," "Sunset Strip," and "Time Machine." Like Copland's "Appalachian Spring" or Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite," Daugherty's music is geared toward a musical depiction of an aspect of Americana (except perhaps "Time Machine"). As you listen you know that this music should be accessible to a wide group of listeners. And why not?

Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra do a smashing job realizing the music, as they have done on past releases (see this blog for an earlier review). The sound stage captures the detailed, brightly impastoed glow of Daugherty's orchestrations.

In short this is a release that should have great appeal. I found it delightful.

Commemorating Thanksgiving With Charles Ives

No one but Charles Ives could be Charles Ives. HE created incredibly idiosyncratic collages of marching bands, pop tunes of the day and hymns, rustic largos of great beauty, and tremendous cacophonies of orchestral sounds, all patched together in his barn as studies in striking contrast. His was a boldly advanced music that now is considered unmistakeably a high point of early 20th-century American culture.

I read an amusing sci-fi novel of time travel many years ago. I think it was called Hot House Flowers. I forget the name of the author. In it a visitor from the future travels to turn-of-the-(last)-century America and mentions the music of Charles Ives to those he meets, thinking that everyone would know the name of what had become in the future America's greatest composer. Of course no one has ever heard of him. One hundred years later we may not be doing much better in so far as the general public is concerned. Yet his music continues to speak to those who listen to it with open ears.

Right in time for the holidays Naxos has released a very appealing volume of his music, with James Sinclair conducting the Malmo Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus. It is a nicely paced program of vintage Ives, including some previously unrecorded orchestral arrangements of Ives' "The General Slocum" and "Overture in G Major" along with some other rather underplayed miniatures. But it is the last three movements of his "New England Holidays Symphony" that form the backbone of the program. Movement Four, "Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day" comes at a particularly opportune time, and could form a part of your holiday listening if you have a family that is open to substantial and advanced fare along with their cranberry sauce.

Sinclair's renditions are some of the best on record. He lets the idiomatic quotations shine forth with gusto and a certain Victorian naivety, his largo passages are both mystical and pastoral, and the cacophonous huzzahs of anarchic sound clashes are breathtakingly vital.

This is Ives interpretation at its best!